Sola Scriptura

Well, good morning. Today is a very important day. If you are a student of the church calendar. Today is All Saints Day. If you follow the Catholic and Orthodox calendar, which means it's the day where the Orthodox churches celebrate all the saints throughout all the time of the church. And I like to celebrate all the saints by dressing up my daughter in a very cute outfit, collecting candy because people think she's cute, and then eating that candy after she goes to bed. In honor of the saints, of course. It's also an important day because it's Reformation Day. That's why we have sung A Mighty Fortress is Our God. That's why we sing the Romans Doxology. And that's why we're talking about sola scriptura or scripture alone today. October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Church of Wittenberg. And it began the Protestant Reformation. Now, we're Protestants because we have protested against the Catholic Church. That nailing of those 95 theses began that protest because the Catholic Church had been abusing power and had been misinterpreting Scripture and had been teaching the wrong doctrines of salvation. Luther looked at Scripture. And as he read scripture, what he was being taught from the church did not align. And so he protested. He said, here, I will stand here, I will die because it's about the salvation of God's people, it's about the clarity and the truth of God's word. If just to summarize what the Protestant Reformation was all about, we can we can say that the five Solas, they are in Christ alone, by faith alone, by grace alone, to the glory of God alone, and Scripture alone. Now, what those things all have in common is the word alone. As partisans, we believe that it is in Christ alone that we are saved. It is only by His work. There's nothing we add to it. We don't need a priest to dispense Christ's work. We need Christ. And Christ alone, who he is and what he's done is sufficient, is more than sufficient to save us from our sins. We believe that salvation comes by grace alone and faith alone. It's not believing and then adding works. No, it's believing in the work of Christ. And it's to the glory of God alone. It's not about us. It's about the one who has saved us. And finally, for today, we're going to look at Scripture alone. It's the only foundation we have. Paul said the church is built up on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. The church has the Bible as its foundation. We have traditions and traditions are good and healthy and helpful for the church. But we have to always think about analyze that tradition in light of Scripture. Because Scripture alone is God's Word. So this morning, we're going to look at what Scripture is and how it can be the foundation for us as a church to live, to love God, to love one another, to believe rightly. Now, it's first week, so you'll have to give me much forgiveness. The text is not 2 Timothy. We're going to be looking at 2nd Peter. 2nd Peter, chapter 1, verses 16-21. So, please turn there. We'll get all things working correctly and together soon. Thankfully, it's not as to how smooth we work it. It's the Spirit working through us. 2 Peter 1.16-21 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the majestic glory, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased, we ourselves heard this very voice. Born from heaven, for we are with him on the holy mountain, and we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no one for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Second, Peter. Addresses one of the two major problems that faced the early church and one of the two major problems that faced the church throughout its entire history. The first problem is this. There are those who teach that works are necessary for salvation. that you have to do something, that you need to cleanse yourself and you have to make yourself ready to believe in Christ. That's a wrong belief. It's what Paul writes against in Galatians. Right? It's the Judaizers. They're saying Christ's work alone is not enough for you to be saved. It's not just believing in that work. You need to believe in that work and do something to be saved. So that's one error, that you have to do something else in order to actually be saved. The other error is this, that works are unnecessary altogether. Works are unnecessary altogether. That's what we see in Jude. That's what we see in 2 Peter. It's people saying Jesus has died for us and he's given us great forgiveness. Let's go sin so he can forgive us of even more. This particular context, people are saying Jesus has died, he's come, but he's not coming back. He's not coming back, and so while he's gone, let's play. Let's enjoy ourselves. Let's do what we want to do. These are two major errors that we need to be aware of for our own lives. And these two major errors are addressed very clearly in Scripture. The second Peter, the context is there are those who have come into the church and they're teaching. Do what you want. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Instead of eat, drink for the glory of God, live for the glory of God because Christ might come at any second. Friends, when we look at this text, one of the first things I want us to see is that Peter confronts this heresy of denying Christ's return and how we are to live according to Christ's gospel and good godliness, proper godliness from Scripture. His first or one of the major arguments is that Scripture is God's Word. That's what we must confess together from this text is that Scripture is God's Word. And I'm going to begin in verses 20 and 21 in terms of walking through this Really, because that's the foundation of what Peter is saying. Verses 20 and 21, knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy has ever was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Notice what Peter is getting at here. What is the source? of the proclamation. What is the source of the proclamation? Did the proclamation of God's word and these testimonies and these declarations, did they come from within just really godly, great men? Were the apostles and the prophets just the most spiritual men that wrote from what their own experience taught them? No. Peter is clearly saying that is not what happened. Like Jeremiah. In chapter 1, verses 7 and 9, God called him out and put his words in his heart and on his mouth. 2 Samuel, God says, the Spirit of the Lord spoke through me. His word was on my tongue. Samuel is confessing that it is not my own thoughts that I'm proclaiming. It's God's thoughts. Ezekiel 13, 3 speaks of the other kind of men. Men who speak evil from their hearts. God's word is not the product. Of the thoughts of man, the source of the content of the message did not come from men, it came from God. God spoke. And these are his words, what we have to consider is this this language here in verse twenty one. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. What we see in that particular text is you see, God is the source of the message. But praise God, he uses men to carry out that message. This is what is called, for those who want to go further into the theological study, the doctrine of concurrence. You see, God could just speak audibly like he did at the Mountain of Transfiguration. God could just speak whenever and however he wants. But graciously, God doesn't just speak to us to call us out to be His children. God speaks to us and blesses us so that we can then be used as God's children. And it's amazing to me here that God, He can write His Scriptures in the stars. He can declare all His truth that He wanted to in the stars. But instead, He uses man. He incorporates us into His plan. He allows us to be ambassadors of His gospel. And these particular men, these men who wrote Scripture, they had a particular blessing. They were carried along by the Holy Spirit. The content, the source of the content is God. But the instrument is man. Now, we can see this because there's not a uniformity of personality and writing style in Scripture, right? We can see this carried along. We can see this human element because the Spirit didn't just come upon man and man starts dictating. There's not a uniformity in everything that's said in the Scripture. There's a unity in the whole message. There's not a uniformity in style and grammar. Because we can look and we can see Paul's letters. He's a punchy fellow. He's got a little sarcasm. He uses his rhetoric and his logic and his great training. We see Luke, he's a historian. We see Peter, he's kind of a hothead. We see the personalities coming out from each man. It is the Word of God using men and their words and their writing styles and their personalities. So, if you look at Scripture, it's not just men dictating what God says. No, it's God declaring his word faithfully using the particular men that he has chosen to carry out this task. Now, here's the logical question. If men are involved in it, how is there not error? If we thought if we if we if we were honest with ourselves, we messed things up. When when man touches the holy things of God, things get messed up, we believe that this Bible is without error. But we also believe it is God's Word. We also believe that He used men to help produce it. So how is there not error in it? Well, it's the fact that the Spirit is carrying along these men. The Spirit is using their different personalities, but the Spirit is protecting the final words that are written down to make sure they are exactly what we need to hear as a church. Let me give you an analogy of how the Spirit is able to do this. In Luke, the Spirit goes into the womb of Mary and creates the baby. It's a miraculous conception, correct? We confess the virgin birth. The Spirit goes into the womb and brings about conception, miraculously. And the Spirit is there hovering in the womb of Mary, bringing all of the humanity of Mary so that the boy who would be born, Jesus Christ, he would have a full, complete, perfect humanity. He would have all the DNA. He would even have some of his mother's characteristics. He would have a complete, perfect humanity, but he didn't have the sin. That Holy Spirit was working as, it would bring in all the different, it would work as a vacuum in a way, bringing in all the humanity that Jesus needed to be a perfect human, to be a perfect Savior. There's also a filter, protecting that infant, protecting the embryo, protecting the womb. See, if we confess Jesus is a sinless Savior, We believe the Holy Spirit has the power to actually bring in flesh from Mary and keep the sin out. How can this how can the spirit not have the power to work in the mind and the hearts of these apostles to use their words, their personalities to bring about his word? Scripture is without error. It is trustworthy. It is good. It is good for us to be reading and constantly meditating upon. It is not. Does not find its source in man. But thankfully, he is a used man. So how can we apply these truths that Scripture is the product of God? These are actually God's words for us. Well, the first application that I want us to think about this morning is that we must read Scripture prayerfully. We must read Scripture prayerfully. You see, we know from 2 Timothy and 2 Peter that the Spirit breathed these words out. The Holy Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity, breathed these words for us to have before us and to read. This is where it gets great. Not only did He provide those words to be sitting in front of us to read, when Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father, He sent His Spirit into our hearts. The very same spirit that produced these words for us to read was sent into our hearts if we are truly regenerated by God. The same spirit that produced the words is now in our hearts. And so if we read Scripture prayerfully asking, Lord, what does this mean? We pray through Scripture as Chip so faithfully did. We think through Scripture and we're praying for God's illumination to take place. We can be moved to think differently. We can be moved to believe differently. We can be moved to love differently. You see, the work the Spirit did among these apostles and these prophets, that He inspired the words they wrote down. He inspired the words He wrote down. The Spirit's not done with these words. The Spirit's ministry now is to illuminate our eyes, to illuminate our hearts, so that when we read these words, we understand them, we believe them, and they change us. So as we read Scripture, we have to recognize there's a bit of a dance taking place. The same Spirit that produced these words is in our hearts. And that spirit that's in our heart needs to, as we read those words, begins to change the way we believe, the way we think, the way we love. And what we need to do is start praying that when we read Scripture, our sin is illuminated. We need to start praying that the darknesses that lie in our hearts, the very dark corners that we don't like to think about, when we read Scripture, Scripture starts shining light on those. The Holy Spirit uses Scripture to start shining light on those dark parts. So that we repent of them. So that we purge ourselves from them. See, the Spirit continues to use the Word in a very dynamic way. But we must be prayerful. We must be intentional. We must be focused on praying that God will illuminate those dark parts and then He'll illuminate His Gospel. He will show us the grace and the forgiveness of God that covers those dark parts. That helps us remove those dark parts. and starts leading us to godliness. You see, we can read scripture, and we've all done this, to learn how to win an argument. Scripture is written very rationally. It's using the words of men. It's using the customs of man. They're human words. So we can learn how to have a very precise written doctrine. We can cross all our T's and dot our I's and all that we understand. But that's not how God wants to be glorified alone. God wants us to believe rightly. God wants us to stake His thoughts after Him, and that's why He's given us His Word. But more than that, He wants us to take those right thoughts and let them produce right affections. Scripture just doesn't change the way you think. It changes the way you love. It changes the way you live. And without the Spirit working with your reading, you're not going to have the proper effect, the proper fruit of reading Scripture. So, friends, let us be committed to not just reading Scripture, to organize it correctly, to get all of its content. Let us read Scripture, guided by the Holy Spirit, hoping that we will love God more by reading it. The second application I think we should look at is that we must read the Bible as a community. We must read the Bible as a church. We need to not just simply read the Bible privately and hope that we get all that it has for us. Now, the Spirit is in us, and the Spirit has produced it, and the Spirit can truly show us many things in Scripture. Well, I can't tell you how blessed I am the times I read Scripture publicly with friends and I hear friends tell me what they understand from Scripture. They tell me what they've been convicted from Scripture. And God uses that to convict me further. You see, we have to realize that the Spirit has blessed each one of us differently. He has gifted each one of us differently so that we make up of a whole body of Christ. He uses each of our different personalities and gifts and talents so that when we come together and read Scripture, when we talk about Scripture, we learn from one another. You're robbing yourself from a great blessing if you keep your devotional life private. It needs to be public. I want you to do your devotions in private, but I do not want your devotional life to be private. I want your devotional life to be public. When we start meeting with one another, I don't want the first thing we talk about to be the game. Well, the first thing we talk about to be scripture, whether it be talking about something that we've studied together in a sermon on a Wednesday night in a Sunday school, or maybe just coming and saying, brother, I just read scripture this morning and let me tell you what God has told me or asking what has God told you recently? Let scripture be the foundation of our conversations together. That's how we have a mutual building up. of the body. The reason we need others, especially in our lives, is because if we're honest with ourselves, we're all prone to self-deceit. I can read Scripture, and there can be a real hard word in there, and I've figured out how to justify my own sins. I've figured out how to look at Scripture and say, well, surely He can't mean that. That must be hyperbole. And the Spirit continues to work in my heart and I continue to refuse. That's why I need other brothers. I need other Christians in my life who will say, no, you're lying to yourself. The Spirit uses each of us to help show us our blind sides, to show us our self-deception, to show us the beauty of the Gospel if we read Scripture correctly. The third reason, the third application, we should think about in terms of scripture being God's word and God carrying men along to produce scripture, is that we must continue to be the mediums of God's word. God gave these men a very special place. So Peter gets his name in the Bible. Peter was blessed. Peter gets to have his name in the Bible because he was actually used to write down these words. And we now always will talk about first Peter and second Peter. We'll always talk about Paul's epistles. We will always be talking about these apostles because God used them in a very specific, unique way that I don't think God is doing anymore. But. God also has a very specific, unique calling upon us. And that is to take what these brothers said in Scripture. And go and tell it to other people. Our Opportunity is to take what these brothers have revealed in terms of their eyewitness accounts and what they knew and heard from Jesus Christ Himself. What the Spirit put on their hearts and in their minds to produce for us. We now get to go out into all the world and proclaim it. We get to go and tell them about Jesus. Now, at one level, I think it would be incredibly great If God just took his finger, metaphorical finger, and just started aligning all the stars, Jesus saves. Wouldn't that be fantastic to be able to just point people up in the sky and say, look, Jesus has saved us. You need to just look up there. It's universal. God moved the stars. You can't deny it. Believe that. It'd make it easy, wouldn't it? Well, I like the opportunity. I think the better opportunity for us, the better blessing for us is that we get to go out and do the hard work. We get to go out and take the Bible in our hand and say, look, it doesn't just say Jesus saves. It tells us that Jesus is our healer. He's our comforter. He's down on the cross. He's risen again. He's coming again. We have so many words that we can show. But because they seem mundane, Maybe you're embarrassed of Scripture. I don't know why we don't go out and tell our people about what God said. These words are as faithful as anything God can write in the sky. These words are trustworthy. What we need to do is trust that He can carry us along and bless us in our declaration of who He is and what He's done. That is our obligation. We have been blessed with understanding of Scripture. to be a blessing to others. Another way we can be mediums of God's message still, is to pray for mission work. We want to be doing the evangelism work, but we want to be praying for mission work. Particularly, we want to pray that these words are translated into every language around the world. This is extremely important. Because when churches are formed, they need this as their foundation. They need the same blessing we have that when someone says something, they can check it. We need to pray for people to begin translating God's word. And I want us to begin praying for an individual who I'm not going to name. There's a young man in the church who has a desire. to commit his life to full time translation work. So this is just like another lay of icing on the cake when I hear this after I come. That we actually have a young man whose desire is to do full time mission work by translating the scriptures. Let's commit to start praying for this unnamed person. The Lord knows who he is. And I'm going to allow his family the joy of announcing this in one of our prayer meetings so we can pray for him more faithfully. by name. But it's a great joy. God is actually working among us to bring about a translation of God's word for a given people so that they can be built upon Scripture. Let's have great joy in that. Let's pray for more of that. So the first thing we see is that Scripture is God's word. He has produced it. He is the source of it. The second thing that I want us to think about this morning is that how is that Scripture allows us to experience Christ. Scripture allows us to experience Christ. And this is in verses 16 and 19. Peter says to these folk who are claiming myths and traditions and denying the coming of Christ, for we did not follow cleverly devised myths When we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory. This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from above. For with him on the holy mountain, we have something more sure the prophetic word to which you will do well to pay attention. to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Now, this is Peter. He's obviously arguing that Christ will return again. That's the coming of Christ. And he's arguing that Christ is going to come again. And he's arguing because he's already come. Peter got to see Jesus on the mountain of Transfiguration. And remember, Peter is the one who goofed. Oh, we should build these tents. No, there's only one that you're going to truly worship. He got to hear the voice of the father declared, this is my beloved son. What a unique and beautiful opportunity. What's amazing about this, if we look at verse 19. We have something more sure. The prophetic word. I personally had a hard time wrestling with this passage. Because I would personally like to see Jesus up on the mountain of transfiguration and to hear the words of the Father from heaven declared, this is my beloved Son. This sounds pretty sure to me. This sounds pretty awesome. I would love to have that experience. But God has not blessed me with that experience. He has blessed me with the opportunity to read about it, a number of different accounts, in this particular declaration. And so, as I thought about why, why does Peter say it's more sure? Well, God isn't declaring his word audibly at all times and all places. God has given his words in this printed form for all times and all places. So at some level, this is more sure because it's it's always available. There's a second issue in terms of how sure it is and that I don't know if Peter would have had a clue what the father was declaring if it worked for Isaiah 42, 1 and Psalm 2, 7. which is the basis of that great declaration, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. The father has cut and pasted two declarations of the son, put them together and audibly declared it. And so when Peter hears the father say this, he knows what the father is saying because he knew his Old Testament scripture. The Old Testament prophecies are sure and set back because they have such a clear pointer. They have such clear pointers to who the Messiah was going to be. And now we have the New Testament that has such clear pointers to the fact that he has come. And he's going to come again. The written word is permanent. And the written word is the basis to understand the vocal word. Now, as we think about. The fact that Peter is saying we can experience Christ in our hearts, we think about the experience Peter had, and he's actually saying we can have a more sure foundation for an experience of Christ in Scripture. Let's think about how we can apply that first, by declaring that Scripture is the only way to know the Savior. Scripture is the only way to know the Savior. That's why it's so important for us to go declare the gospel. I love the woods. I'm looking forward to hiking, I hope. I hope my back allows me in this week to go hiking after playing football yesterday. I love being out in nature because I can look at nature and I can say, this is orderly. This is beautiful. There is someone out there who has really put this whole thing together, and it is absolutely gorgeous. The way the seasons change, the different ecosystems, the way it all functions together when we're not messing it up. The creative world is glorious. And if we reflect properly, we can look back and just say, there's a good God. There's a God of order. There's a God of power. But you'll never see from Scripture that there's a Father who loves you so much that he sent his only begotten Son to die for you. The most important truths, the most deep, necessary truths for your soul and for your well-being, you can't go find in the forest. You can't go find by studying nature. We can discover a lot of great things about God from studying nature, but the most important things you only know because God has spoken and revealed them to us. We can only see a vision of Jesus in Scripture. Without Scripture, there is no salvation. So this is why Scripture is so important, because it is the special revelation of God that saves us. Secondly, Scripture is the only way to know how to worship our Savior properly. Scripture is the only way to know how to worship our Savior properly. I believe that Scripture regulates worship. We do not just get to decide that we're going to worship God however we want to. No, God is holy and He has actually told us how we can properly worship Him and experience worship. worshiping him. I want us to experience and express a true heartfelt worship of the one true God. God loves us with his own son. That should move us to truly love him, to experience a love and express a love. But we have to do so according to Scripture. To help them understand how Scripture must function to regulate worship and to help us experience worship, Picture 18 boys, they've got a bat, they've got a ball, and they've all got gloves. They're out in the middle of a field. Now, what are they going to do? It's just a plain old field. They're going to have batting practice. They're going to have to play pitch and catch. They can't play baseball because they're out in just some field. You can't play baseball, even if you have all the equipment, even if you have the all-star team of Major League Baseball, without a baseball diamond. You have to have the parameters and the rules set forth in the game to properly enjoy the game. The rules of baseball help you enjoy playing the game. Because you have to have a home plate. And you have to have the bases. And you have to have the boundaries where the ball can be hit. You see, Scripture is like a baseball diamond in the sense that it gives us the proper rules so that we can enjoy playing the game. It sets forth what we're supposed to do and how we're supposed to do it so that we can truly jump into the game and not worry about going foul and just have a heartfelt love for worshiping God. Now, as a young man, I hated rules. Anytime a rule came up, I tried to figure out a loophole or a way to just absolutely rebel against it. I was not a believer until I was in college. Very rebellious heart. Anytime a rule came up, I wanted to figure out a way to undermine it, to break it, to get through it. Rules were evil to me when I was a child. Now that I've come to Christ, now that the Spirit has illuminated my soul, rules are glorious. Rules let you play. without fear of going out of bounds. Rules are helpful. Rules let you know what you can and can't do so that what you can do, you can do it wholeheartedly and joyfully. And so what we as a church need to think about and pray about and talk about together in our vision times is what does worship look like? How does Scripture regulate us to worship? And one of the things I want us to think about is that it does regulate us in a very clear way. that when we come together corporately, I want you to express and experience a true worship. But as Pastor Russell said last week, I want it to be orderly. As the Spirit moves in your heart, I want you to be thinking about how can I express this love that I have without distracting other people from loving God. Right? Because it's not all about you worshiping God. It's about us coming together to worship God. If you want to shout, that may be distracting. If you need to shout, you may just need to go outside and shout, and then come back in and worship with us corporately. I want us to express and experience a true worship, but I think the Spirit wants us to express and experience a worship together. And so if one brother says something that's going to cause everyone to be looking at him instead of thinking about God, that's not really facilitating. Helpful and true worship. The third thing, Scripture is our only tool by which we draw others closer to the Savior. We're all kind of like John the Baptist. We're all pointing to Jesus. This is what we do. This is the only power we have. We point to Jesus and we have to point from Scripture to Jesus. We don't get to be like on the baptism since we actually see the Lamb and point to Him and say, everyone look at Him. We point from Scripture and point other people to Jesus. Now, my new obligation, my new opportunity, my new joy is going to be pointing you to Jesus. We have been received with great joy, with great excitement. We have a great joy and a great excitement about being here, but it's been a little overwhelming as to how we're supposed to come and save the day. I know that no one thinks that, but I don't want anyone to think that. We're not here to fix everything. We're here to point you to the One who can fix everything. See, here's the truth. This is just as clear. You'll see this clearer sooner or later. I'm going to fail you. It breaks my heart that I'm going to fail you. Because I already love you so much. I'm going to fail you because I'm goofy. You've already seen that. I'm going to fail you because I'm sinful. You will see that. But this is a relationship we have to have. I need forgiveness in my sins, just like you need forgiveness in your sins. And every time I fail you, this is what I want you to do. I want you to remind yourself that I'm not the real pastor of this church. I'm not the good shepherd. I'm not the one who can actually give you perfect healing and comfort and salvation. I'm just the under shepherd. I'm the one who's supposed to be telling you, there he is. He's coming soon. Prepare yourself. And I'm supposed to keep you until that day that he claims you and brings you into his true pasture, the good pasture. And perfects you, cleanses you and heals you. Until that day, I pray that you will help me love you. And that we will walk together, hand in hand, as failures, as goofs, as sinners. And they will always be applying forgiveness and salvation and the gospel to one another's lives. When I fail, please forgive me. And please, just let that grow a stronger desire for the one true shepherd who can care for you. Finally, scripture gives us promises that give us hope and direct us to God. We do not deny the return of Christ because it's the only hope we have. Paul, you are Peter uses a lot of metaphorical language in verse 19. We have something more. Sure, the prophetic word to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place. Until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Now, I believe the morning star is a reference to Numbers 24-7. A star will come out of Judah. That's Jesus Christ. You see, until the dawn breaks, until this time, this era of God's plan ends, until Christ comes, until the light truly shines, and it truly shines in our hearts in a way that we experience Him perfectly face to face. We have to battle. We have to trust His Word. We have to trust His promises. We have to fight to believe those promises, because they should change everything about us. The question is, how much evidence is there in our lives that Jesus is coming again? How much evidence is in your bank account? In the way you spend your money? The way you spend your time? The way you prepare your children? The way you're living your life? How much evidence is there in your life that Christ is truly going to come again and give us rewards for what we've done in first kingdom? Friends, let us contemplate. how we can experience Christ more through experiencing His Word. And let us think about, in our individual families and as a family together, what it means that Christ is coming back and how that should change us. Let's pray. Almighty God, Your Word is good. Your Word is faithful. Your Word gives us love like we could never imagine. I pray that as we read your scripture as a church, that we will be amazed at the depth and the breadth and the width of your love for us. And it will move us to love one another and to love those outside these walls. Give us a heart that longs for your return. Give us a heart that longs for what you will do to us on that day when you call our name and you perfect us and you heal us and you cleanse us. And until that day, may your spirit move among us to keep us and protect us as your children. Amen.